


Save Me If You Can

by owleyes_n_moles



Category: EXO (Band), Kpop - Fandom
Genre: Angels, Bullying, Child Abuse, Depressing Thoughts, Depression, Domestic Violence, F/F, F/M, Fallen Angels, Falling In Love, I repeat, Love, M/M, No Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pain, Read at Your Own Risk, Suffering, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, and baeksoo fall in love, baekhun falls from heaven, baeksoo - Freeform, no character dies, this fic is depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 02:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16802332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owleyes_n_moles/pseuds/owleyes_n_moles
Summary: Prompt #: R2.078Title: Save Me If You CanPairing: Baekhyun/KyungsooSummary: Baekhyun, an angel, is cast out of heaven for breaking its rules. He meets Kyungsoo on earth and can't get him out of his mind. Kyungsoo, a human high school student, is fed up of his life and suffering and wants to end it all. He wants absolutely nothing to do with Baekhyun. How will the two affect each others lives?





	Save Me If You Can

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very emotionally heavy fic. It won't be easy to read. 
> 
> Before you begin, let me just say one thing:  
> There is always a light at the end of the tunnel. And someone who loves you will be standing there with open arms.
> 
> You are not alone.

Baekhyun stood in front of the Heavenly Father with his head bent in shame. He had failed his duties yet again and was summoned forcefully from earth for his hearing. 

“What do you have to say in your defense, Baekhyun?” Raphael, the mediator of the hearing, asked. He stood in all his glory, white robes glittering in the white light and the soft gold of his feathers casting a yellow glow in the humongous marble Colosseum. Baekhyun was always a little mesmerized by how beautiful Raphael looked. He was beautiful even by angel standards. 

“Baekhyun?” Raphael called out, looking at him questioningly when Baekhyun had not answered. 

Baekhyun shook his head and mentally slapped himself for losing focus in the middle of something so important. “The little boy would become an orphan if I let his grandfather die. I couldn't let that happen,” he admitted honestly; not like he could lie. He was an angel after all. 

“You know that we are not supposed to interfere with earthly matters, no matter what. Am I correct?”

Baekhyun nodded. 

“Despite being aware of this fact you meddled with the natural order of life and death. Am I correct?” 

Baekhyun looked at Raphael imploringly, hoping he would get the message and try to say something or ask something that would turn the hearing in his favor. 

“Do you admit to it or not?”

“Yes, I admit. But please listen to me just once. You need to see what happened before making a decision.” Baekhyun looked at the other angels seated around and put on his best puppy-face-teary-eyed look. 

“Okay, we’ll admit one memory into evidence,” agreed Raphael after rolling his eyes subtly at Baekhyun's little act.

What? Baekhyun couldn't lie but that didn’t mean he couldn't put on a little show.

“Any memory of your choice, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun pulled out his best memory of the little boy and his grandfather and projected it onto the Mirror of Memories. 

A five year old boy was coloring a happy family on a piece of paper as his grandfather served customers in his tiny noodle shop. It was a small hole-in-the-wall noodle shop but the customers seemed to like the food. The boy laughed as someone asked him a question and then happily recited a nursery rhyme for them. The grandfather gushed about how proud he was that his grandson was growing up so quickly. 

One of the customers, a woman, went up to the boy and asked what he was drawing. He excitedly showed her the paper with four people on it. 

“This is my papa, this is my mama, this is grandpa and me!”

The woman smiled sadly at the boy, patted his head, and offered him a piece of candy from her purse. She then patted the grandfather’s hand before leaving, sad smiles on both their faces. 

That boy would never see his mother and father again, but he hoped for it anyway. 

The scene folded into night and showed the boy and his grandfather walking home. The boy was licking an ice cream and skipping happily, singing a nursery rhyme off-tune. His grandfather watched him fondly as he tiredly tried to keep up with the little ball of energy.

Baekhyun tensed up a little as the memory moved on to a later part of the night. He knew what was going to come then and he did not like that part of the memory. Not one bit. He turned to see the other angels and the looks on their faces. He could see that most of them were already fond of the little boy and the bright smile on his face. 

The boy was woken up by gasping sounds. “Grandpa?” he called out in the moonlit room, reaching out to touch his grandfather and make sure that he was okay.

His grandfather didn't reply, only wheezed and gasped on the floor. It was followed by a bout of coughing and then- nothing.

“Grandpa? Grandpa?” The little boy could immediately sense that something was wrong and he started crying, violently shaking his grandfather’s hand and hitting his shoulder, begging him to wake up. 

“Please. Please. Please wake up Grandpa. Please!” 

But there was no reply. 

Baekhyun stood in the corner of the room and watched with tears in his eyes. He couldn't let the grandfather die, but he wasn't allowed to do anything either.

It was the first rule: Thou shall not meddle in the workings of life and death on earth. 

“Please! Someone help. God, please help!” The little boy continued crying, turning to his faith when he couldn't understand what to do next. 

“Please God. Take me instead. I will be good. I will do everything you say. Take my life instead. But let my Grandpa stay. Please don't let my Grandpa die!” 

This broke Baekhyun's heart. He couldn't take it anymore. The first rule could rot in Hell. He immediately rushed to the soul leaving the body and pushed it back in. Then he infused his healing powers into the old man, locking the soul within so that it couldn't leave the body unless Baekhyun or some other angelic being decided to free it. 

“That's enough!” 

The voice thundered through the Colosseum, making everyone go rigid with fear and the air go still. The Heavenly Father had spoken and that meant only one thing: Baekhyun was screwed.

“You broke the first and most important rule of all, without even a moment of consideration. This isn't your first time meddling in human affairs, but you have been dealt with leniently so far because you stayed cleared from breaking any major rules. This time, however, you have committed a great sin, my child. You shall be punished as any other angel in heaven. You will be stripped of all your power and cast from heaven. You will be stripped of your wings in St. Peter's Square so that an example can be made out of you for all-“

“Heavenly Father, if I may interrupt.” 

Oh, he did not. Baekhyun looked at Raphael like he had sold his brains to the local butcher's shop. Had he gone bonkers? What was he thinking interrupting The Heavenly Father like that? Raphael was going to be cut into pieces and Baekhyun was going to have to eat him. Baekhyun was sure of that. Just the thought of chewing on Raphael’s fathers was making Baekhyun gag. 

“Yes, Raphael. What do you have to say?”

Baekhyun turned and glared at The Heavenly Father in betrayal. Yes, Raphael. That's it? He wasn't going to smite him? He wasn't going to shoot a lightning bolt at him? Talk about unfair treatment! 

“Baekhyun acted purely based on sympathy for the child. The child's prayer was heartbreaking. Anyone, human or angel, would have been moved by the child's plea. Baekhyun acted solely on instinct and such a grave punishment would be unfit for this situation.” 

The Heavenly Father seemed to take Raphael’s words into consideration. He stroked his beard and contemplated over the situation. 

“Baekhyun, tell me my child, is the soul still tethered in the man’s body by your doing?”

Baekhyun nodded fearfully. What if Father decided to take away the grandfather’s soul to teach Baekhyun a lesson?

“Well then, here's my final verdict. Baekhyun, third son of Michael The Fifth, will be stripped of most of the powers bestowed upon an angel, barring his ability to heal other beings. He may retain his wings but they will not be able to help him ascend back up into heaven once cast out and will be refused entry back through the Heavenly Gates until he makes right what was done wrong. For every year he lets the human live beyond his natural time of death Baekhyun will have to serve the same number of years as a human, on earth. Only when he has released the soul from its body and served his term can he ascend back into heaven. This is my word and so it shall be.”

Lightning buzzed bright as soon as The Heavenly Father finished his sentence and struck Baekhyun in the middle of his chest, leaving a mark of a fallen angel. Baekhyun barely had a couple of seconds to recover from the searing pain in his chest when he felt the ground give way under him and then he was falling….and falling….

Baekhyun wondered what a falling angel looked like to a human on earth right before he lost consciousness. 

Unbeknownst to Baekhyun, a human sat on the edge of a cliff and stared at the sky above. He had been contemplating how far he would fall if he jumped off the cliff and if it was enough to kill him when the sky lit up with lightning and thunder roared through the air. A bright streak of light cut through the night sky; a shooting star. He wondered if that was what angels looked like when they fell from heaven.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, watching the shooting star light up the night sky as it got closer and bigger and then silently made a wish. 

“Hit me,” he prayed, “and please make sure I die.” 

***

Kyungsoo was what most normal teenagers would call a “loner” or more precisely an outcast. He didn't like being one. He didn't ask for it but no one seemed to care what he wanted. His first memory of being unwanted was when he was five. He remembered standing behind his bedroom door and watching his parents fight; over him. 

“Don't you blame this on me,” his mother screamed. “You are as much responsible for this as me!” 

“That is is why I told you to get rid of him!” His father screamed back at her.

“I tried okay? I tried. And I thought it worked,” his mother screamed back.

“It didn't. It didn't work. And now you can take care of your mistake.”

“My mistake?” His mother pushed at his father, “my mistake? If only you had money then I could have gone to the abortion clinic and done it right.” She started hitting him on his chest, crying loudly now. “You were broke. Just like now, you were always broke. If only you had money then I wouldn't have to suffer like this. He is your son too. Take him away. Do what you want with him. I don't care.”

Kyungsoo shut the door as softly as he could. He didn't want them to know that he had heard them, not that it would have made a difference. He might have been young, but even a child can understand when he is unwanted. 

He crept into his cupboard with his pillow and blankie, dragging them inside with difficulty. He pulled the doors shut and in the darkness imagined being with his grandma who had passed away a couple of months back. He used to cuddle up with her in the night and she would read him bedtime stories. He would always listen with rapt attention, eyes wide and curious, never once dozing off in the middle of the story. Then they both would kneel on the side of his bed and pray to god with folded hands. “Lord, Father Almighty, our creator and savior…” his grandmother would pray and he would hang onto every word, saying a thank you in between and an Amen at the end. 

That night he prayed a little differently. “Lord, Father Almighty, can you please take me to where my Nana is? It is okay if I die. Then I can meet her and my Mum and Dad will also be happy. They don't want me here. Please, will you help me?” 

The most painful feeling in the world is probably the feeling of being unwanted. Have you ever really wanted to talk to someone, just catch their attention even for a few seconds? Tried to say something witty to make them laugh, or maybe compliment them over their looks or maybe handwriting, or maybe asked them to explain something to you that you already know? If you have, you would know how hard it is to be the one yearning for attention. 

That wasn't the last time he felt unwanted, nor did it get any better for him. Each was day worse than the previous one and his desire to live got bleaker as each day went by. Until one day, he decided to do something about it. That night he climbed up the cliffs behind his village and sat on the edge of one, wondering how far he would fall if he jumped and if the fall would kill him.

***

Baekhyun woke up in a soft bed. That was proof that he had definitely been cast out of heaven. Angels don't sleep. 

He looked around the pink colored room with pony drawings on the wall, baby pink dresser, furry pink stuffed animals in the corner and shut his eyes again. 

“No, please no. Please.”

“What happened?” A worried male voice made its way closer to Baekhyun's bed. “Are you hurt? Is there something you need?”

“Is this Hell?” Baekhyun asked, still refusing to open his eyes. 

“No, it's earth. Why? Were you supposed to be cast into Hell?” The man seemed to be put at ease by Baekhyun's lack of response about being hurt.

“No, but it sure feels like it.” Baekhyun opened his eyes and stared directly up at the white ceiling. 

“Are you in pain?” The man stared down at Baekhyun worriedly once again. His eyes were a striking blue and reminded Baekhyun of the Pond of Life in Heaven whose water was the same shade of crystal blue. “I didn't find any bruises besides the scar of The Fallen on your chest.”

“My eyes are in pain. Which pony vomited all across the room?”

“Huh?” The man looked confused for a second and then he rolled his eyes when he realized what Baekhyun was getting at. “Ha-ha very funny. This room belonged to a young girl until a few months back. We haven't gotten around to renovating it.” He walked away from Baekhyun and opened the pink cupboard, putting in the towels that he had brought along. 

“Oh, so will you be renovating it anytime soon? It sure does look ugly.” Baekhyun sat up and watched as the man put away a few pairs of socks and underwear into different drawers.

“Soon? No, I don't think so. Now that you will be living here for a while, I think this room looks perfect as it is.”

Baekhyun was stunned for a few seconds. “I'll be living here?” Why was this man offering him a place to stay? How did he know that Baekhyun needed a place to stay?

“Yes, of course.” The man turned to smile at him, having put away the T-shirts and trousers too. “Do you have any other option?”

“No, but how-“

“Why don't you take a shower first? And then we can discuss everything at the dinner table. You probably haven't realized it yet, but you stink, like literally. I really don't want to puke out my dinner just because I’m trying to be nice and not tell you how much you stink. And besides, you seem like a mean little smartypants anyway. I'm sure you can take a ‘you stink’ comment like a man.” 

Baekhyun was too baffled to say anything for the first time in his life. 

“I'm Jongdae, by the way. Be down for dinner at 8.30.”

Baekhyun nodded mutely and watched the man shut the door.

In between the realization that he had really been cast out of heaven and having to deal with this really weirdly candid human whom he had met for the first time in his existence, he had not had the time to notice the most important thing.

Now he sat frozen in shock as he realized what the man had said. Cast into hell…. Scar of The Fallen…. 

He knew what Baekhyun was. 

***

Kyungsoo got dressed for work. He didn't have school that day so he had a full day of work planned ahead. That meant three very tiring part-time jobs. He had been working since he was twelve, wondering about how he would pay for his books or his new school uniform when his classmates spent their days playing video games and sucking on ice-candy. 

Kyungsoo could proudly admit that he had matured early and that he had matured well. He was the man of the house even though he was just a sophomore in high school, earning a livelihood for both himself and his mother while trying to keep his grades decent enough to get him into college. Sometimes college did seem like a far off dream but he couldn't not go. It was his one-way ticket out of his house.

He was so lost in thought that he didn't even realize as time flew by during his morning job at the farm. He stopped for a breath only when he was done taking off his work gloves and boots, both covered in cow dung from a morning full of shoveling it out of the cow sheds. Sweat covered his brows and ran down the sides of his face. He was tired and out of breath. He was always tired and out of breath recently. He was probably coming down with something, maybe the flu. 

Walking down the pebbly path with his payment tucked safely in his pocket, Kyungsoo felt slightly more at ease. If he managed to buy the next week’s groceries at the Farmers market with the money in his pocket, he could use the rest of the day’s pay to buy a new bulb for his room and get the broken window fixed. He had been blundering about in the dark in his room and shivering in the cold for almost a week now because he couldn't afford to get them fixed. 

The rest of the day went by in the same dull monotone manner that it always did. Mindless work was done by tired arms and a fatigued body. The only thing about Kyungsoo that seemed to be alive was his mind but recently he had been losing that too, not that anyone seemed to care.

The highlight of his day was right before he left the convenience store after having locked the inventory room and having turned off all the lights except for the one near the cash register. The owner was going through the day’s sales and looked up as Kyungsoo placed the bunch of keys at the counter. 

“You look tired,” he noted, seeing the way Kyungsoo eyes drooped. “Are you eating properly? You look sallow.”

Kyungsoo nodded while staring down at his feet. He didn't really want to lie to him.

“Kyungsoo,” the owner bent down so that he was at eye level with him, “I know life is hard for you, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take care of yourself. Eat,” he said, pushing a plastic bag with a few Kimbaps towards Kyungsoo. “Luckily for you, there were a few more expiring than usual. Now you can eat your fill.” 

Kyungsoo bowed and thanked the owner and walked out of the shop happier than he was a few minutes earlier. His day had gotten better. He excitedly looked into the bag and counted eight Kimbaps. That meant he would, at least for that night, not have to go to bed on an empty stomach. He had been waking up the past two nights from hunger pangs and had to eat ice chips to calm down the pain in his stomach. That night he would sleep on a full stomach. Just the thought of it made him so happy that he unknowingly had a skip in his step. 

Kyungsoo’s happiness never lasted long enough; even on those rare occasions that he ever felt happy. He came home to his mother and her newest boyfriend making out furiously on the couch. He hated the new boyfriend. He was hugely built, mean, rude and he had even hit Kyungsoo more than a couple of times, leaving him with bruises that took a lot of lies an explaining at school. Kyungsoo couldn't fight back against him; he knew that. So he chose to hide out of sight as much as he could. It was the only way to avoid being abused at home. He could report the man to the police. That is what you're thinking, aren't you? He couldn't. His mother ha threatened to throw him out of the house if he did and Kyungsoo had nowhere else to go.

He shut the door as silently as he could and tried to tiptoe his way to his room. On a good day he could have gotten away with it, but that day wasn't a good day for him. 

“Hey, you, what do you have there?” His mother’s boyfriend apparently had no plans to let him be. 

Kyungsoo froze in his tracks and tried to hide the plastic bag from view behind his legs. He knew that he would lose his dinner if that man saw what he had.

“Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” Kyungsoo heard the couch creak as the man got up but he still continued staring at his feet. The best way to avoid a beating was to avoid eye contact with the man. Kyungsoo had learned that from years of being abused. It wasn't a foolproof plan and mostly it didn't work at all, but making eye contact guaranteed a hundred percent chance of getting beat. “You know that lying to me is wrong. Don't you? You know that you shouldn't lie to your elders right?” 

Kyungsoo tried not to take a step back as the man approached him. He stood his ground but he didn't dare look up. “It's just some expired Kimbap,” he admitted because he knew that the man wasn't going to let him go without examining his bag. If he got angry he would just destroy the food, throwing it on the floor and stamping all over it so that Kyungsoo wouldn't be able to eat it. Kyungsoo had experienced that before. Admitting the truth was the easiest way to save his food. 

“Expired eh? Are you lying to me now? Are you lying to me so that you can eat it all by yourself? Don't you have any bit of humanity in you Kyungsoo? Your mother and I are hungry but you'll lie to us so that that you can hog all that by yourself in your room?”

_Humanity? Humanity? How about you try to show me some first?_

Instead, he said, “no, I'm not lying.” and tried to keep the anger out of his voice. “You can check if you want. It really is expired.”

The man guffawed. “The boy is giving me permission to check. You see Minri? This boy is giving me permission to check.” He laughed loudly for a few more seconds and suddenly grabbed Kyungsoo's face by the chin. “Of course I’m going to check, boy.”

Kyungsoo tried not to tremble as he slowly handed over the plastic bag to the man who grabbed it roughly from him and checked the expiry date on the packets. 

“He is telling the truth, Minri. I'm surprised.” He turned to look at Kyungsoo with wide eyes. “You do know how to tell the truth. So, you weren't born a liar after all.” 

Kyungsoo could feel his patience running out. He was tired from a day of labor and feeling weak because he had almost nothing to eat for the past two days. He just wanted to eat his expired Kimbap and go to sleep in his dark and freezing room after his daily short prayer to God. He just wanted to leave. To be done with all of it. 

“Why would you bring back expired Kimbap? Don't you think you ought to bring back good food for us? Do we look like dogs to you?”

“I didn't have any money. This was all I could get.” Kyungsoo lied through the teeth, hoping the man wouldn't insist on a bodily check and find the money on him. 

“What do you mean by-“ The man started advancing on Kyungsoo when his mother interrupted him. 

“Let the boy go, darling, and come back here. I miss you already. And I'm hungry too. Come back here.” She patted the couch and pouted her lips as him like a petulant child. 

The man looked between her and Kyungsoo, weighing upon what would give him more satisfaction: torturing Kyungsoo or continuing his promiscuous activities with her. He abruptly turned around and walked to the couch with the bag, his hunger and lust getting the better of him. 

Kyungsoo stood there for a few seconds, hoping that they would take out how many Kimbaps they wanted and give him the remaining. Who was he kidding? He hoped that they would give him at least one. Expecting more than that was expecting too much. 

Well, expecting even one was expecting too much. 

“What are you doing standing dumbly over there, boy? Go to your room. Scoot!” 

Kyungsoo locked his jaw, barely stopping himself from asking for one Kimbap, at least one. His hunger had gotten the better of him and he had almost begged that man, that monster, to give him food. He stopped himself in time, steeling his nerves and keeping his dignity, or what was left of it and walked quickly to the bathroom. 

He drank directly from the tap in the bathroom to calm his growling stomach. It didn't do much but it did reduce the stabbing pain a little. 

Once he had safely removed the money from his socks and hidden it under a loose floorboard under his bed, he kneeled down to pray as he did daily. Once again he asked God for what he always did: to go to sleep and not wake up the next day. 

That night he decided to help God a little with fulfilling his wish. He opened the window wide so that the chilly winter air would flow right in and took off all his clothes before laying down on his bed. 

He closed his eyes thinking about those Kimbaps and how he would have given anything for one last meal, even if they were expired Kimbaps. 

***

Baekhyun looked around the table a few times, trying to wrap his mind around the weird assortment of people having dinner with him. Or rather, the weird assortment of people he was having dinner with. 

Jongdae had cheerfully introduced him to everyone at the table as “Baekhyun. He will be staying with us from now on.” He looked at Baekhyun for a couple of seconds and then added, “for as long as he likes.” 

“How do you know my name?” Baekhyun dumbly asked him even after knowing that there was no way Jongdae was merely a human. The other man to his right, who Baekhyun now knew was called Minseok, had rolled his eyes and continued eating as if that was a question that someone asked Jongdae every other day. 

Jongdae was more patient with him and told him that they would explain everything to him in a little while. “Shouldn't we get done with introductions first?”

He pointed to a tanned handsome boy with a chiseled face and a cute boyish smile, “this is Jongin. He is an incubus.”

Baekhyun laughed at that. He didn't mean to but his cheeky nature was not something he had full control over. He wasn't surprised by the fact that Jongin wasn't human. He could feel the energy at the table and tell that the only human there was Minseok. Jongdae was….well, he still couldn't figure out what Jongdae was. 

“That's awfully rude of you,” Jongdae chastised Baekhyun, “we don't demean each other in this house. Everyone is equal regardless of status.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” Baekhyun apologized, “I didn't mean it that way. It's just that it's funny.”

“What's funny?” This time it was Jongin. He had bent forward, curious about what Baekhyun had to say about him. 

“It's funny that you're an Incubus.” Baekhyun shrugged. Frankness was one of his tributes. “You look like a cute little boy. How do you manage to get people to fall for you with that baby face?” 

“I go by Kai,” Jongin said, offering his hand in greeting. 

Baekhyun had never seen anyone's expression change so quickly in his life. One second he was laughing at Jongin’s cute smile, next second he was gaping at the smoldering look in Jongin's eyes. He felt the bottom of his belly drop with the promise in Jongin's eyes of all the things he would do to him if only Baekhyun let him. 

Baekhyun felt that deep voice of his go straight to the pit of his abdomen and electricity buzz through him as he took Jongin’s hand.

“Pleasure to meet you, Baekhyun.” 

“Fuck,” Baekhyun gasped when Jongin had let go of his hand and he had managed to regain some control over himself. He had a raging boner in his pants and thanked the Heavens that they were seated at a table, otherwise everyone would have noticed it. 

“You can make a trip to the bathroom, if you wish, to relieve yourself. We can continue introductions later.” Jongdae offered. Baekhyun took a couple of seconds to gather his wits and understand what Jongdae meant. When he finally realized it, everyone at the table was chuckling at him and Jongin was back to his boyish self, chuckling cutely as if he hadn't just given Baekhyun the biggest boner of his life. 

“No, I'm okay,” Baekhyun said, embarrassed that everyone knew what was going on in his pants. It didn't matter that they were sitting at a table. Everyone knew. He had thanked the heavens for nothing. 

“It's okay Baekhyun. Jongin has done that to all of us. You are not the only one. And from this you learn your first lesson: appearances can be deceptive.”

“No shit, bro,” Baekhyun admitted, bringing around another round of laughter. 

He had been further introduced to Chanyeol- a Faerie, Yixing- a third level demon, Sehun- a vampire and Junmyeon- a Reaper.

“Minseok, as you can tell, is a human,” Jongdae told Baekhyun, reaching for Minseok’s hand and smiling at him fondly. Minseok looked back at Jongdae with the same love and fondness in his eyes, if not more. 

“As for me,” Baekhyun stopped eating and paid full attention to Jongdae, this was the part that he had been waiting for all along. “I am one of The Fallen. Just like you.”

***

Baekhyun couldn't sleep. Not because he had been reinstated as an angel but because he couldn't wrap his mind around what had happened during dinner. He had been alive for a thousand years now but never once had he ever seen such a combination of people, if that's what you could call them, living together in harmony. Just watching them asking each other to pass the salt, passing the basket of bread rolls around, laughing and teasing each other, pulling each other's leg and boasting about their exploits (that was Sehun. He just wouldn't stop. Chanyeol finally shut him up with a spell that made his lips get stuck together) and making plans together for the weekend. 

Baekhyun tossed around in his pink bed and pulled his pink fluffy blanket up to his chin. Pink or not, it sure was comfortable as hell. Baekhyun chuckled as he remembered those times when Raphael would punish him with cloud mowing duty whenever he heard Baekhyun curse in the name of Hell. It's was such an irony that whenever Baekhyun found something nice he would take the name of Hell; comfortable as Hell, nice as Hell, hot as Hell. Okay, hot as Hell worked because Hell was hot. But comfortable as Hell was not exactly right. Maybe he should start saying comfortable as fuck. Was fucking supposed to be comfortable? Baekhyun didn't know. He had never done it. Then what would be the right word? He needed a word-

“Do you mind if I come in?” Chanyeol was at the door. He had stuck his head in with his body still out of sight behind the door.

“Yeah, sure.” Baekhyun sat up and ran a hand through his hair to make sure it wasn't a mess. Chanyeol was an attractive guy- Faerie- whatever, and even though Baekhyun swore that he wasn't interested in the guy, he sure didn't want to look like a bum in front of him. 

“That's a very interesting choice of pajamas.” Chanyeol teased. He seemed like the jovial and funny type, not intending any harm by his joke or teasing. 

Baekhyun looked down at the oversized shirt he was wearing. It said, “my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.” Baekhyun hoped that he was the only one who would see himself in the atrocity but he was running low on luck. “Yeah, well, it is true you know.” No matter how embarrassed Baekhyun was, he never lost his sass. 

Chanyeol laughed heartily. “I like you already,” he admitted, sitting down on the side of Baekhyun's bed without any invitation. The boy didn't have any concept of personal space it seemed. “See, I just came here to tell you, welcome home. I don't know what your story is, because you so ardently refused to tell us, but remember that we won't judge you. Whatever you did, to get here, we will accept without prejudice. All of us have been together for a while now, so you might feel slightly out of place or alone, but don't let that get to you. It takes time to know people and it may take time but you'll get to know us eventually. You are not alone. We are here for you. All of us.”

Baekhyun was silent yet again, not having the right words to say. After spending a millennium being cheeky around snobbish and haughty angels he found it hard to find the right things to say to kindness and generosity. 

“Thank you.” It was the best he could come up with. But he meant it with all his heart. Less than 24 hours had passed since he was cast out of heaven and doomed to spend his life on earth as a human. He hadn't given it much thought before he had fallen, but he sure as hell knew that he'd have a rough path ahead. But finding these people, or rather these people finding him and giving his shelter, food and company, was like the heaven showering him with blessings. “I mean it. Thanks a lot.”

Chanyeol patted his arm and left the room, turning off the tube light and casting tiny Faerie lights with a flick of his wrist to light up the room instead. 

Baekhyun lay in the softly lit room, watching the tiny glowing Faerie lights float around in the air and for the first time in his existence fell asleep with a smile on his face. 

***

“You want me to go to school?” Baekhyun hadn't been more surprised by a request in his life. He stopped trying to push his pinky through the Froot Loops that were supposed to be his breakfast.

“What else are you gonna do with all that time on your hands? And if I'm not mistaken you are gonna be here a while. Aren't you?” Jongdae poured milk into Baekhyun's bowl and handed him a spoon. 

“Yeah, well, I haven't, you know, thought about it. Not really.” Baekhyun hadn't really thought about it. He knew that his punishment would last as long as he continued to defy The Heavenly Father and let that soul inhabit that old man’s body. So technically he could end his sentence right that minute and go back home. But something inside him stopped him from doing that. He didn't have an explanation for it. He could say that it was humanity, but angels don't have humanity. They know about love and sacrifice and are embodiments of the same but they weren't humane. For angels, duty stood before all else, even love and sacrifice. So what Baekhyun was doing was just…odd. 

“Either way, I think you should try to experience human life while you have the chance.” Jongdae pushed the bowl closer to Baekhyun, indicating that he should start eating before the Froot Loops get all soggy. 

Baekhyun was still having difficulty with accepting the idea of having to eat food for sustenance. He liked the taste of food but eating it regularly, several times a day, was an idea he still had to wrap his head around. 

“You should listen to him, you know.” 

Baekhyun looked up, surprised. It was the first time that Minseok had addressed him directly. Minseok was a quiet man of few words and didn't really speak much anyways. So having him address Baekhyun like this was surprising, to say the least. 

He took up a seat opposite to Baekhyun after placing a soft kiss on Jongdae’s head. “He usually gives good advice. And it's not really that bad being a human, you know.”

“I'm sure it's awesome. But you have to be lying if you say that school is one of the better experiences.” Baekhyun studied Minseok’s face, trying to guess his age but found it hard to. He looked really young, but there was a maturity in his eyes that only came with age. 

“You might like it. You wouldn't know unless you tried it.” Minseok raised his eyebrows challengingly. _Give it a try_ , his expression said. _Then argue with us._

“Okay. I'll give it a try,” Baekhyun submitted, “I don't have anything else to do in the meantime anyways.” 

“Great!” Jongdae jumped up with joy. “I'll ask Yixing to whip you up some fake papers and admit you into school.”

“Yixing? He’s the third level demon, right? Is that what he does on earth? Forge papers?”

“No silly,” Jongdae laughed at Baekhyun. “He’s the principal of the local school. And an insurance agent on the side. He's a demon after all.”

Baekhyun was going to have an interesting time on earth; very interesting indeed. 

***

Kyungsoo woke up on Monday morning an hour before school. He looked around for his alarm clock, wondering why it hadn't rung and saw the hands standing stationary at 4:00. Great. Now he needed to buy batteries for his alarm clock. 

He had fixed the bulb in his room and had bought enough groceries to last a week and was left with just enough money to fix his window, with none to spare for a couple of batteries. 

He weighed the importance of the two: broken window and chilly nights versus waking up on time. The latter won. It meant that he'd have to go another week without fixing his window. 

_Why do you want to do that?_ He asked himself. _Maybe if you continued sleeping in the cold you might just freeze to death one of these nights._

It made sense to him so he stopped dwelling on it anymore, instead imagining himself in bed. He went about his morning routine as he imagined his own death in his head. He pulled on his clothes while imagining how blue his lips would be from the cold. As he put his books in his bag, he visualized himself all stiff and unmoving. 

He wondered who would find his body first as he put rice in the cooker so that his mother would have something to eat when she woke up. He wondered if his mother would realize that Kungsoo had not woken up that morning after she checked the rice cooker and found it empty. While he ate kimchi directly from the storage container and washed it down with milk, he wondered if his mother’s boyfriend would be the first to find him instead of his mother. Would he try to hurt Kyungsoo when he found him lying in bed instead of making breakfast? Would he try to push Kyungsoo's body down from the bed? Or would he punch him first? How would he react when Kyungsoo's would be still as stone? 

Kyungsoo was so lost in his imagination that he didn't even realize that he had reached school until the first bell rang. He felt some form of catharsis by imagining his own death. Weirdly, it made him…happier? He couldn't explain it, but he definitely felt better after doing it. 

"Hi there, KyungPoo."

_Shit. Not again._

His personal tormentors had made their appearance. Kyungsoo tried to walk away from the bullies but could only do so after getting dragged into the boy's bathroom and punched a couple of times. Kyungsoo tasted blood in his mouth and knew they had busted his lip even before he felt the pain. They left after hitting him a couple more times and their homework sheets with him. He had until the next morning to complete them and hand them back.

School was a necessity for Kyungsoo; a necessity in many forms. He needed school to stay sane. To function like a normal person, as normal as he could be under his circumstances. It helped him have an excuse to stay out of the house without getting beat up for it. In winters it was his warm refuge and in summers it was cool. He could sit in a corner without having to listen to his mother make lewd sounds or hear any of her boyfriends tell her what a good ‘bitch’ she was. He needed a high school diploma to get into college. It was his only ticket out of that house and to a better a better life. 

_What's the point? You get beat up here too._ His dark thoughts were back again, grabbing at his feet and trying to pull him back down into the pits of darkness. _And you're gonna be dead soon anyway. What's the point of working so hard?_

Kyungsoo didn't argue with himself, just let his mood sink into murkier waters till his expression turned into a scowl that he carried around for the rest of the day. 

It's hard to believe that a person with suicidal thoughts could wake up early every morning, dress up well, go to school, go to work, do their homework- function like a normal person- but not every person with suicidal thoughts is depressed. And not every depressed person is suicidal. 

We hardly ever know when a person might be in such a state of mind where they might want to end it all. The signs are few and hard to see when you're too busy enjoying your own life or wallowing in your own problems. These people and their thoughts, problems, pain are invisible to us. 

Kyungsoo was one such invisible person. No one ever saw his pain, his suffering. No one saw his end coming. 

Well, no one until Baekhyun came along. 

***

Baekhyun was kinda excited about his first day at school. Jongin was a sophomore too, or rather pretended to be one. 

“But why?” Baekhyun asked Jongin as Minseok drove them to school in his jalopy. Baekhyun had started to say something cheeky about how the jalopy looked like it could go galloping but he shut up as soon as he saw the glare Minseok was giving him. 

“High school girls. And well, guys too. The football team has quite a few gingerbread men if you know what I mean.” He wagged his eyebrows and poked Baekhyun in the arm front between the two front seats, the mischief evident in his smile. 

“Is that even legal?” he asked, unnerved, catching Minseok’s eye in the rearview mirror. Minseok shrugged his shoulders as if saying, “none of my business.”

“Don't act so scandalized! I'm not sucking out their souls or anything. That is purely reserved for feeding nights at the club. In school, I’m just having fun, you know. Just physical fun.” Jongin fully turned around in the passenger seat to look at Baekhyun. “I’ll show you what I mean. You can have a bit of fun too. You angels normally don't do stuff like that do you?”

“Have physical fun?” Baekhyun asked sarcastically. Honestly, he was starting to get uneasy. Angels didn't indulge in any acts of a sexual nature. Sure some of them, like Baekhyun did have a potty mouth for an angel but that was it. That was the extent of his “physical fun.”

“Yeah. It's hard to give it up once you get a taste of it.” 

“You're just saying that because you're an incubus. It's in your nature,” Baekhyun challenged, the idea of frolicking with other not sitting well in his stomach.

“Okay, if I'm an incubus and am biased,” Jongin countered, his smile turning into a smirk as he turned to look at Minseok, “then why not ask Minseok, a human, why Jongdae moans so loud every night?” 

Minseok ears turned so red they looked like the label of a Coca-cola bottle. “I didn't know you could hear us,” he muttered embarrassedly through clenched teeth, “I’m sorry for that.”

“Oh no no,” Jongin shushed Minseok and waved his apology away, “don't apologize for it. I have jerked off quite a few times to the sounds of the both of you an I must say, that I did rub off a couple of good ones thanks to you guys.” He slumped back in his seat and let out a sigh a if remembering that night with fondness.

Minseok was so mortified by then, as was Baekhyun, that he almost drove past their school without dropping them off. Luckily Jongin still had his wits about him and got Minseok to stop the car in time. 

Waving their goodbyes to a red-eared, red-cheeked, and completely mortified Minseok, they walked into school. Jongin, with his 100-watt smile, looked confident enough to take over the world and Baekhyun just hoped to have an uneventful first day. 

Unfortunately for him, he was fresh out of luck. 

The thing about Baekhyun was that he could never stay low or silent for long. He had hardly been in school for a few hours and by lunchtime, almost everyone in his grade knew about him. Quite a few girls came by to his classroom to check him out and quite a few followed him to the cafeteria too. Jongin kept laughing at him whenever he got super embarrassed by how close a girl was leaning into him and poked him in the ribs. 

The lunch table was lit, Baekhyun's cheek and humor making an appearance as soon as he got comfortable with the scene and he started enjoying himself. Jongin was popular in school and Baekhyun could see the wonders his innocent laugh did on both girls and boys alike. The Kai side of him never made an appearance, but he didn't need it anyway. He was charming enough without even trying. 

“Are you guys good friends?” One of the more inquisitive girls asked him, referring to him and Jongin.

“Well, I guess.” Baekhyun couldn't lie. He could hide the truth and maybe twist it a little bit, but he couldn't lie; one of the drawbacks of being an angel. 

“How do you know him?” She was one nosy girl. 

“We Iive together.” 

“Do you guys-“

“Oh come on Solbi,” Jongin came to Baekhyun's rescue, “don't hound him like that. Do you want to suck him dry on the first day?”

“It's not my fault that he's cute enough to grab my attention,” she smiled slyly at Baekhyun and handed him her phone. “Give me your number and I'll leave you alone.”

Baekhyun took the phone from her and typed in the number of the pizza delivery place that he had read on the way to school. “Do not call after midnight.” he said, “I will be asleep if you call any later than that.”

Jongin saw what Baekhyun had done and tried to hide his laugh. 

“How did you do that though?” He asked Baekhyun later, “I thought angels couldn't lie.”

“I never admitted out loud that it was my number. That would be lying. I just asked her not to call after midnight. Then I stated a true fact about most probably being asleep after that. We too have to find a way to work around the telling the truth all the fucking time, you know.”

Jongin gave him the “I'm impressed” look and went back to chatting up a cute girl who seemed a little shy. 

Baekhyun liked the way the day was going. It wasn't exactly uneventful but it wasn't a bad day either. Then he saw a scrawny little boy with a scowl on his face. 

He was sporting a busted lip and the blood on his shirt was a tell-tale sign of a nosebleed. 

His clothes looked too big for him even though Baekhyun was sure they weren't bigger than a medium size. His collar bones stood out sharp against his skin and his cheeks looked hollow. He looked like he hadn't eaten for weeks and the unhealthy pallor of his skin made him look almost as pasty as Sehun. Baekhyun could tell that the boy was a human and not a vampire, but the scowl on his face and the foulness of his aura almost made him seem like a demon.

He looked like he was out for blood and whoever was on the receiving end on his anger was going to get it bad. Baekhyun considered interfering, trying to stop the boy from whatever he was doing but then he remembered why he was here in the first place: for interfering with humans. Best to stay out of it, he decided and walked away. 

But the thing about fate is that you can't walk away from someone you're fated to meet. 

***

“So what kind of magic user are you?” Baekhyun asked Chanyeol. They were lounging on sofas in the living room and playing video games. Junmyeon and Sehun were there too. Junmyeon was busy sewing a long black trench coat and Sehun had cucumber slices on his face. “Vampires need to take care of their skin too you know,” he had told Baekhyun when he cracked a joke about Sehun finally going vegetarian. 

“My magic flows from the earth.” Faeries had four different kinds of users; those that drew their magic from the earth, the air, the water, and fire.

“So you're the luckiest of the lot, huh?” Baekhyun mused. Faeries were at their strongest when their respective elements were close by. The water users were strongest at sea and fire users could best use their powers if there was a fire nearby. Not that they couldn't use their powers otherwise, just that they were strongest when their elements were close by. 

“I thought you'd believe that the air users are the luckiest of the lot. That's what most people believe actually.” Chanyeol was surprised that Baekhyun was of the opinion that earth users were luckier than air users. 

“But why?” Sehun had lifted a cucumber slice and was looking at them through one eye. From how still he had been Baekhyun thought that he had fallen asleep. 

“Air is everywhere. Hence it's easier to use,” Chanyeol explained, “they have constant strength wherever they go unlike other users.”

“But then why is Baekhyun saying that you're the luckiest of the lot?” He picked up the cucumber slice off the other eye so that he could open that one too. 

“Because they don't tire out easily,” Baekhyun interjected for Chanyeol. “Air users have constant strength everywhere because their element is always around them, but they tire out easily because air is the hardest element to manipulate. On the other hand, earth users can just replenish their stores by drawing energy from the earth. It has an endless supply and they can draw it’s energy to replace theirs. It is also the easiest element to manipulate because of its density.”

Chanyeol raised his eyebrows at Baekhyun. “You seem to know quite a lot about Faeries.” 

“I spent quite a bit of time at the library a few years back when I was grounded,” Baekhyun admitted sheepishly.

“Grounded?” Sehun sat up, somehow managing to balance the cucumber slices on his face. Vampires and their impeccable balancing skills. 

Chanyeol laughed, clapping his thigh. “This is the most animated I have seen him in a month. He's always being such a sloth I thought that he was finally turning to stone.”

Sehun stuck out his tongue at Chanyeol and tuned back to Baekhyun. “What do you mean by grounded?”

“Well, it's a kind of punishment for us angels,” Baekhyun said, trying not to give out too much information. The Heavenly Father liked The Heavens and their workings to be shrouded in mystery. He didn't like it when the angels shared anything about The Heavens with the folk of the other realms. 

“I figured that much out, genius.” Sehun rolled his eyes. “I'm asking you what happened.” 

Baekhyun stayed silent for a few seconds debating whether he should answer the question or not. Was he willing to face the repercussions in case he angered The Heavenly Father even more? _Fuck it_ , he thought and decided to tell them the truth. 

“When we get into trouble that is not big enough to break any of the Cardinal Rules we get grounded for a period of time. Being grounded, for angels, means being unable to fly. That means we have to walk everywhere and we definitely can't fly out of heaven. Because if we step out of the gates, we'll fall. Like literally fall.” Baekhyun remembered standing at the edge of Heaven and peeping over the edge. He wanted to fly. He wanted to fly so bad he almost considered jumping off the edge just to see if his wings would magically work. 

“I couldn't bear it; not being able to fly. I wanted to fly so bad that it was all I thought about and almost jumped out of Heaven just to feel the wind in my wings and against my face. I got so desperate that I asked my fellow angels to take me for a ride. I bribed them with stuff I had collected during my days on earth and make them take me for rides. But of course, The Heavenly Father found out. And he was livid.” Baekhyun remembered the chill that spread could the sunlit courtyard when The Heavenly Father saw him being flown around and shivered. Lightning crackled in the sky, making everyone’s hair stand up and thunder rumbled so loud that Baekhyun could feel it under his feet. 

Sehun shifted in his seat, bending closer to Baekhyun and listening with razor sharp attention. Even Junmyeon had stopped sewing his trench coat and was now listening to Baekhyun. 

“No one had so blatantly disobeyed a punishment before and The Heavenly Father was not willing to let it slide.” Baekhyun felt sadness flood him as he remembered the next part. Chanyeol sensed this and reached out for Baekhyun's hand, squeezing it to comfort him. 

Baekhyun smiled at him ruefully and continued, “surprisingly, he gave me back my power to fly. I was overjoyed. I couldn't even express how happy I was. I thought to myself ‘this is what they mean by the Holy Father’s Benevolence’, but I was wrong. He gave me the power to fly but imprisoned me in the library. You would expect the library in Heaven to be tall and vast with high ceilings, but in reality the rows between the shelves are narrow and the ceiling is very low. It s a place where we are forced to walk because there isn't enough place to fly. And I was sentenced there on ‘librarian duty’ for a time that seemed like forever. I couldn't leave the place and not being able to leave meant not being able to fly. He gave me back what my heart wanted most, but he made sure I couldn't use it.” 

Chanyeol was visibly mad about what had happened to Baekhyun and Sehun was more shocked than anything else. 

“I thought Heaven was a happy place,” Sehun admitted, the shock still evident in his voice. “I thought it was all about forgiveness and love and all that nice shit.”

Baekhyun laughed wryly. “That's all bullshit. Heaven, at least for us angels, is all about rules. I'm not denying that we don't have forgiveness, love, and all that nice shit, we do, but even that has rules.”

“You have to follow rules about love?” Junmyeon had broken his silence for the first time that evening.

“Yeah. We can love only purely, platonically and unconditionally. Any other form of love is considered as misconduct- breaking the Cardinal Rule about love. And if found guilty, during our hearing, we are cast out of heaven. That's how we become one of The Fallen.” 

“That's just…just…” Junmyeon blinked a few times, unable to come up with the right word for all that he wanted to express: his shock, his disbelief, his disapproval, his relief that he didn't belong to a place as hypocritical as Heaven. 

“That just sucks,” Sehun offered. “Sucks big ass monkey balls.”

“What?” Junmyeon looked at Sehun, so baffled by what Sehun had said that he looked comical. 

Baekhyun couldn't help but laugh at Junmyeon’s expression, breaking the tension in the air. Chanyeol joined in a second later and then they all were laughing. 

Baekhyun hadn't expected himself to be laughing so soon. Baekhyun hadn't expected to be laughing at all.

That night as Baekhyun lay in bed with a smile on his face, just a moment away from falling asleep, he remembered a pale sallow face with a busted lip and dark angry eyes; eyes filled with rage. They were so similar to the Heavenly Father’s when he had discovered Baekhyun that day. And both those pairs of eyes haunted him in his dreams. 

***

The only classes that Baekhyun enjoyed were Algebra and Chemistry. Weird but true. In all the other classes he spent his time listening to other people's thoughts and watching their day dreams like he was watching a movie. Obviously, the quality of each day dream depended on how imaginative a person was and how well they could visualize their day dreams, but Baekhyun had a wide variety to choose from and no shortage whatsoever. Then why would he complain? 

Everyone had different types of thoughts: some happy, some sad, some melancholic, some angry, some worrisome, some anxious, some expectant. Everyone had something or the other on their minds: crushes, first loves, breakups, grades, homework, weight, acne, social networking sites, sex, clothes, parents and expectations; typical worries of teenagers. 

_Maybe I should stop eating all carbs. Jenna lost all that weight from cutting out all carbs._

_My mom will kill me if she sees these grades on my test. What do I do?_

_Wasn't Taehyung being a little too friendly with her? Does he like her? Or maybe she's hitting on him and he's just being nice to her. But he has been distant with me the past couple of weeks. Should I bring it up or not? Will he get mad at me for it?_

Baekhyun browsed through the catalogue of thoughts available to him, pausing to listen in on those that seemed interesting and moving on when they were boring. 

He was, honestly, getting a little bored when a set of thoughts caught his attention. They were dark and brooding and getting closer to his classroom. 

_What does it matter if the assignment is due next week? Saturday is perfect to execute the plan._

The thoughts then started getting softer and harder to hear just like the way someone's voice would as they walk away. 

You just need to find a dark stretch along the railway lines so you can-

The thoughts cut off as the person went out of Baekhyun's hearing range. A cold shiver ran through Baekhyun. The thoughts were too dark. They weren’t thoughts belonging to someone who was happy. They were the thoughts of someone out to kill or wanting to die. Baekhyun hesistated, wondering what to do. He was already in a mess but he had gotten away relatively lucky. He couldn't afford to stir up the waters again. He'd be in deeper trouble; trouble that he probably wouldn't be able to find his way out of. 

He stood up suddenly and ran out of class, not bothering to ask for permission to leave. His teacher called after him as he ran out of class but he didn't care, just running in the direction that he thought the person went. He looked around and all he saw was an empty hallway. The person was gone. He went up to every class in the hallway, standing close to the doors and trying to sort through everyone's thoughts and find the one he was looking for. After ten minutes of zero luck with his search he gave up and accepted defeat. He had hesitated for too long. He had been too afraid to make a move and now someone was going to lose a life; because of him. 

He fell to his knees in prayer, pleading the heavens to give him a sign, to help him find the person.

“Please,” he begged, “please Father, help me.”

His only reply was the ringing of the class bell and a flood of students in the hallway.

“What was that about?” Jongin asked him on the way to the cafeteria, referring to the way Baekhyun had run out of class. They had the same history class before lunch break. Jongin had come looking for Baekhyun, finding him sitting with his back to the lockers and his head between his knees. Baekhyun had refused to speak for the first few minutes, scaring the shit out of Jongin and making him text Jongdae for help. Seeing Jongin freaked out made Baekhyun come to his senses and he stopped him mid text, assuring him that he was fine. 

“I'll explain at home. Can't talk about it here.”

Jongin nodded, letting the topic go. Their world was not something they could discuss in public. “Oh and I told the teacher that you have a stomach bug after eating some weird Chinese food last night.”

Baekhyun raised his eyebrow at Jongin. “Weird Chinese food, really?”

“What?” Jongin raised his arms, palms up. “That's the best I could come up with at such short notice, okay? Maybe give me a heads up, next time. Otherwise, who knows, I might just tell everyone that you have Gonorrhea.”

Baekhyun cracked a smile at that and punched Jongin in the arm. “Are you that desperate to have all the meat to yourself?”

“I have heard the girls talking about you. I don't mean to be rude, but you, fucking bastard, have reduced my fan following by half. I'm pretty sure of that.”

Baekhyun laughed heartily at that, wagging his eyebrows and doing a little cutesy act. “I am cute, ain't I? Yes? No? Yes? No? Yes?” With each “yes” he poked Jongin in the tummy, tickling him and making him laugh. 

“Okay, okay, stop, stop. Fine! Yes! Yes, you're cute.” He fondly threw an arm around Baekhyun and guided him through the crowd to the cafeteria.

Baekhyun's mood was uplifted and he did laugh but that didn't mean that he had forgotten about that person. 

There was no way he could. 

For the rest of the day, Baekhyun barely paid any attention in class, constantly listening to everyone's thoughts so that he could find that particular one again, but had no luck at all. The last bell officially signified the end of the school day which meant that the student, or teacher, or anyone else, would be leaving soon. There was only one option for Baekhyun: wait for the next day and hope that the person didn't act before Saturday. That would give Baekhyun enough time to figure out who it was. 

He had signed up for an extracurricular- a music club- and was looking forward to it. He decided to put his worries to the side for the day and just enjoy doing something that he loved doing only next to flying: singing. 

“The Music Room is the last one on the left,” pointed out Jongin before he left for soccer practice.

“Thanks. I'll meet you when I'm done. We're going home together, right?” 

“Yup.” Jongin nodded. 

“Then I’ll see you later.” 

“Hey, Baekhyun,” he said, grabbing him by the sleeve, right before Baekhyun started to walk away, “contrary to popular belief, you must be a nerd after all.”

Baekhyun tried to slap his arm for teasing him but he jumped out of reach, laughing as he jogged away. 

Baekhyun was a little nervous walking into the room filled with strangers playing different instruments and showing off their vocals but nothing could kill his excitement. He was really looking forward to singing and just getting lost in the music. Music came only second to flying for Baekhyun. 

Everyone in the room was busy doing something or the other, finally able to do what they loved after a stressful day at school. Everyone except one. He just sat in the corner with his head bent and stared at a spot on the floor. Obviously, that caught Baekhyun's attention and awakened his curiosity.

Why was he so deeply lost in thought? What was he thinking about?

Baekhyun tried to sort out through the thoughts in the room and focus on this boy's but for some reason, he couldn't seem to find any. It's like the boy's mind was blank. That was weird. Baekhyun tried to get a look of the boy's face as that would make it easier for him to locate his thoughts but with his head bent down, Baekhyun couldn't get a look of his face. 

Luckily for Baekhyun, or maybe unluckily, the boy decided to look up right then; right up and into Baekhyun's eyes. It's like he knew that Baekhyun was looking at him. Baekhyun had never been so fazed by someone’s gaze before. But he was so enraptured at the same time that he couldn't tear his own gaze away. Somewhere in the back of his head, he registered the semi-healed lip and a bruise under the left eye. Somewhere in the same place of his head, he remembered that he had seen this boy with heart-shaped lips and big eyes before. 

He had seen him before but there was something so different about the boy now. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Then he remembered the scowl that he had on his face the last time and the anger in his eyes. He had looked positively murderous then. Now, they were….blank. There was no emotion in them. No anger but no happiness either. It's like he felt nothing. 

_He's beautiful for a boy._

Baekhyun was blown away by the force of that thought. He had been blocking everyone else out so hard that his mind had been empty, kind of like a large empty room and the thought reverberated around in his head before settling down like a weird sensation in his stomach. He could see himself in the boy's thoughts, in his head. He could see how he had a glow around him which was weird because he knew that he didn't. At least not a glow that was visible to humans. Was this boy probably not human? But he sure seemed like one. Baekhyun couldn't sense any unearthly about him. 

_Why is he staring at me?_ The boy raised his hand to consciously touch the wound on his lip.

Baekhyun immediately averted his eyes, not wanting to make him any more uncomfortable. He realized that he was being an asshole by staring at him and diving into his thoughts without his permission. 

_He looked away. Didn't he? Why do you think he was staring at you?_

_Maybe he thinks I'm cute?_

_Everyone is the same. They only want to stare at you because you're a freak. Stop being delusional._

Baekhyun felt the boy's emotions run through him as the thoughts flowed; first doubt, then hope and finally despair. The transition took place in a fraction of a second, like a leap followed by a sudden jump. 

“Hey, I'm Baekhyun.” Baekhyun moved without thinking. He stuck his hand out to the boy and smiled. 

He was regarded with scrutiny and doubt. 

“I’m new here,” Baekhyun explained, trying to put him at ease. “It's like my first week here so I don't really know many people.” He chuckled nervously, trying to elevate the mood. 

“Since you're new here, let me give you a piece of advice,” the boy told Baekhyun, bending forward as if telling him a secret. 

Baekhyun bent forward to listen to him carefully. 

“If I were you, I'd stay away from me. Make some others friends.”

Baekhyun was taken aback. He hadn't expected that. “You can at least tell me your name. Or am I not allowed to know that either?”

The boy regarded Baekhyun carefully, still wary of him. “Kyungsoo,” he finally offered.

“Nice to meet you Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun smiled at him and stuck his hand out again. “I’m Baekhyun.” 

“You already told me that a minute ago,” he looked at Baekhyun even more warily. It seemed like he wasn't used to people talking to him. 

“I know.” Baekhyun finally shook his own hand in a show of exasperation and sat down beside Kyungsoo. “But I wanted to make sure that you remembered it. It is rude to not know your friends’ names.”

Kyungsoo started to say something that sounded like "we're not friends," but he was cut off by the entry of their music teacher. 

Baekhyun waited for him to say to something more but the boy was silent for the rest of the time, only occasionally checking out Baekhyun out of the corner of his eyes.

When it was time to leave, Baekhyun tried to come up with something funny to say to break the silence between them. He had just come up with a decent line when Kyungsoo started to walk away.

“Hey, Kyungsoo!” He called out, trying to shove all his things quickly into his bag and follow him but Kyungsoo ignored him and was out the door in a flash.

Baekhyun considered following him but then decided against it. 

Maybe he should take it slow. He had all the time in the world to get to know Kyungsoo.

He didn't know how wrong he was.

To say that Baekhyun was looking for Kyungsoo was an understatement. He was always looking for Kyungsoo. He woke up thinking about the boy, dressed up thinking about the boy, distractedly ate his breakfast thinking about the boy and then walked through the school hallways looking for him. Heck, he even looked out for him on the way to school, his nose almost pressing against the window and fogging up the glass. 

“What's wrong with him,” Minseok asked, looking at Baekhyun worriedly through the rearview mirror.

“Don't know. He ran out of class yesterday and I had to make up make up an excuse for him. He said that he'd explain later but we never got around to it.”

“He looks like he's looking for something or someone,” Minseok observed. 

“I can hear you both, you know,” Baekhyun called out from the backseat. “Quit talking about me like I'm not here.”

“Then why don't you tell us what's got your panties in a knot?” Jongin turned around to look at him, waiting for an answer. 

“Well, it's a really long story.” Baekhyun played with his fingers, trying to avoid eye contact. 

“We're all ears.”

“I'll tell you in the evening. I don't wanna keep repeating it. I'm sure Chanyeol and Jongdae would wanna hear it too. I'll just tell all of you at once.” Baekhyun didn't know if he would be ready to tell them the whole story. Maybe he could leave some bits out. Actually, if he was being honest, he didn't really know what bits he wanted to tell and what he wanted to hide; but he wasn't ready to admit his sudden interest in a certain owl-eyed boy.

“You're not in any trouble, right? I mean human or otherwise.” Minseok sounded concerned and that made Baekhyun feel bad about being secretive. These people cared about him. He shouldn't be trying to hide anything. He'd tell them everything in the evening. 

“No, I'm not in any trouble. It's just something else. I'll tell you guys in the evening. Don't get worked up over it. It's nothing.”

Luckily for Baekhyun, they reached school and a few seconds later and he could part quickly with a goodbye and a wave before he could be questioned any further. 

“Today's going to be a good day.” Jongin spread his arms in the air and took a deep breath. 

“How do you know?” Baekhyun asked him skeptically. 

“I can just feel it. Today will be a very good day.” Saying so, he almost pirouetted into the school like a happy ballerina, leaving Baekhyun wondering if he would have been luckier if he were destined to be an incubus. Being an angel didn't seem very advantageous right then.

There wasn't much he could do about it now. Fate and destiny couldn't be easily rewritten. And for a being like him, it was even harder, so he decided to just go back to doing what he really wanted to be doing: looking for Kyungsoo. 

He barely paid attention in class. He was like a police scanner, only he was scanning everyone's thoughts as they passed close by in the hallway or sat in the nearby classrooms. He kept listening for Kyungsoo's thoughts, and everytime he tried to recall what Kyungsoo's thoughts sounded like, he remembered that one line that weirdly got his heart pounding. 

He's beautiful for a boy. 

Remembering that moment made his heart race yet again, which was weird because a lot of people either secretly considered it or told him to his face that he was beautiful, but he had never really reacted in this manner before. 

Could angels develop heart problems? Baekhyun was technically human now. Not exactly, but kinda, and that meant that he could have human problems, couldn't he? He considered asking Jongdae about it. Yeah, that was a good idea. He would have to bring it up in the evening when he spoke to them. 

Four boring classes later he was walking to the cafeteria with Jongin and a couple of others without really paying attention to where he was going. He was scanning the crowd looking for that scrawny little boy whose clothes were too big for him. He needed to eat. He was too thin. Baekhyun wondered why. Did he not eat enough? Or was he just one of those petite humans?

He barely touched his food or made any conversation, eyes trained on the doors, watching, watching and watching. A couple of times Jongin asked him if he was okay and he nodded at him and pretended to eat to get him off his back, but there was something just nagging him. He couldn't get his mind off Kyungsoo. He shouldn't have been surprised that Kyungsoo didn't show for lunch. For someone his size, it was obvious that he barely ate, but Baekhyun just had this one little nagging sensation that told him to look for Kyungsoo. 

Kyungsoo wasn't in the cafeteria so Baekhyun decided to look through the classrooms to see if he was holed up in one of the empty ones. Coming up with nothing on the ground floor, first or second floor, Baekhyun decided to give up on the remaining four floors. Maybe he was outside, eating all by himself. He did seem like he didn't enjoy the company of others. 

That is how Baekhyun ended up making a loop around the school and came up behind the main building to the storage shed. He heard sounds of boys laughing and mocking someone. 

_What should I do to make them leave me alone? What would it take for them to leave me alone for once?_

Baekhyun felt himself go cold with fear as he heard those thoughts. It belonged to the person he had been looking for all day. 

“Look how pathetic he looks, kneeling in front of us like that.” That comment was followed by another round of laughter and the sound of someone being kicked, followed by a grunt. 

_It's okay Kyungsoo, it's fine. You've borne more than this without making a peep. Just grit your teeth and get through this._

That spurred Baekhyun into action. He sprinted around the storage shed and came up to the gang of boys standing behind it. In the middle of their circle was Kyungsoo, struggling to get up from the ground. His lip was busted open again and he had a few scrapes on his elbows and palms. Baekhyun felt his heart clench with some emotion that he hadn't really felt before. 

He pushed his thoughts aside and decided to deal with them later. He needed to get Kyungsoo out of there first. 

“Let him go.” He tried to sound as tough as he could in front of that group of rowdy high school teenagers. Some were a lot bigger for their age while others seemed older. 

“Oh ho. Look what we have here. A pretty little girl.” A round of cackles and guffaws ran around the circle. 

Baekhyun had caught the attention of the guy who was bullying Kyungsoo. “Are you perhaps Kyungsoo's little girlfriend?” 

This was followed by another round of guffaws and lewd comments. 

One of the guys grabbed his crotch and made a lewd action. “Does he give it to you good?”

“Maybe he likes sticking it up KyungPoo’s ass,” another commented and was rewarded with laughter. 

Baekhyun felt himself get angered by them. They had no right to talk to Kyungsoo that way and

treat him that way. It was wrong. “You guys are being bullies. Stop it and let him go.”

“Or what?” The first guy challenged. “What will you do?” 

He poked Baekhyun in the chest and brought his face real close to his. Baekhyun could smell cigarettes on his breath.

“I'll make a complaint against you guys. I'll go to the school principal and let him know what you're up to.”

“Did you guys hear? This little girl is going to run to the school Principal.” He mocked Baekhyun by trying to imitate his voice and everyone laughed. “Are you gonna cry too?”

“Stop it,” Baekhyun shouted. “Just stop it, okay? All I'm asking you to do is let him go.”

“Okay, I'll let him go as asked. Will you take his place then?” 

Baekhyun was stumped. He wasn't expecting it. One would think that Baekhyun would have learned a few things over the centuries. He had, but he was still lacking. What he wasn't lacking in, however, was self-sacrifice. “Okay,” he said, thankful that they were letting Kyungsoo go. 

“Come on KyungPoo. Get up. Your girlfriend wants a taste of what you're getting.” He caught Kyungsoo by the collar and dragged him away, clearing the spot for Baekhyun. “Come on, little girl. Come here. Right here.” Saying so, he spat on the ground, indicating the spot he wanted Baekhyun to move to. 

“Baekhyun. Don't.”

It was the first time he had heard Kyungsoo say his name and it made a Baekhyun jolt with happiness. He remembered Baekhyun's name. He remembered his name and-

His happiness was broken short by someone dragging him by the collar and pushing him to the ground. “We don't have time to waste. Move it.”

Baekhyun felt a sharp pain shoot up his wrist as he fell on his palms. “Why do you have to do this? Why do you want to do this? Don't you have better things to do?” He looked up at the bullies defiantly, refusing to give in to them. 

“Shut up or else it'll be worse than it is. Instead of soap, we'll make you drink pee. So shut that darn mouth of yours.”

“Wait, what?” Baekhyun was expecting a beating or probably something humiliating like rotten eggs. Drinking soap, or pee, was not something he expected. “You want me to drink soap?”

“You are the one who offered. Didn't you? Or maybe you what to drink pee instead? I can offer you some. Hot and fresh. Direct from the source.” He grabbed his crotch as he got closer to Baekhyun till it almost rubbed against his face. 

“See. What you're doing is wrong. You will get in serious trouble when I go to the authorities and tell them about this. You better stop now.” Baekhyun didn't get much time to start his next sentence for he was grabbed by the hair and shaken wildly. He felt himself get kicked in the chest and stomach a couple of times until Kyungsoo screamed at them to stop. 

“Please. He is not part of this. This was between you and me. So let's keep it that way. Let him go. He's new here and he doesn't know what he's doing. Just let him go.” Baekhyun saw Kyungsoo look around frantically and wondered what he was looking for. He seemed to have found what he was looking for so he went and grabbed the bottle from one of the bullies and held it up. It was yellow and had a lot of bubbles in it. “You wanted me to drink the soapy water right? Here, see, I'll drink it all.” He lifted the bottle to his lips and drank it all as quickly as he could. Baekhyun tried to say something and make him stop but he was kicked in the stomach for trying to move. 

When Kyungsoo was done drinking the soap water he turned the bottle upside down and showed all of them, “see, I drank it all. All of it. Now let him go. Please.”

“Oh come on now, KyungPoo you can't really expect us to do that. Though I must admit that you must really like your girlfriend here.” He tugged on Baekhyun's hair again, making sharp pain shoot through his scalp. 

“Jaedong, there's an assembly right after lunch remember? You could continue to do this during the assembly but they will notice all of us gone and then everyone will fall in trouble. I know you don't what that. I'll make sure that this guy keeps his mouth shut. I'll make sure that he doesn't tell anyone anything. I promise. Now please let us go. Please.” Kyungsoo was nervous, Baekhyun could tell. He could hear it in the tremor in his voice and the way his hands shook as he held onto the empty bottle. 

The gang of boys tittered amongst themselves, torn between seeing sense in Kyungsoo's words and wanting to continue tormenting the two boys. At last, they decided to save their asses that day to allow them more time torment other poor souls at the school and walked away. Though not without a warning. “We will be watching you. No funny business.”

Kyungsoo nodded at them while Baekhyun glared at them from the ground. 

After they had left, Kyungsoo turned around and screamed at Baekhyun. “Who do you think you are?”

“An angel?” Baekhyun blurted out. He wasn't planning on saying that.

Apparently, Kyungsoo was baffled by the answer too because he gave Baekhyun a weird look. 

“See I'm not saying that I'm ungrateful for what you did, but why would you try to do something like that if you can't even fight them?”

“Well, you see,” Baekhyun hesitated for a couple of seconds and then decided, what the heck, and confessed the truth. “Angels aren't allowed to hurt humans. Like physically harm them. So there wasn't much I could do.”

Kyungsoo looked even more baffled by Baekhyun's answer than he was before. “Did you hurt your head?” He knelt down so that he was face to face with Baekhyun on the ground and touched his head tenderly as if looking for bumps. 

“Why did you do it?” He asked Baekhyun when he was satisfied that there weren't any bumps or cuts on his head. 

“Why? You mean like the reason?”

Kyungsoo nodded. 

“Because I care.” Baekhyun couldn't lie but he had never been so honest and so vulnerable in his life. 

He saw Kyungsoo's expression transform. One second it was soft, tender and the next second it was angry and full of mirth. 

“You care? You care?” He let out an empty laugh. It was dry and completely devoid of any emotion. “You don't care, Baekhyun,” he said, leaning in to look into his eyes. “You don't care and neither does anyone else.”

He walked away without another word, leaving Baekhyun feeling raw. He felt weird in his chest like someone was squeezing his insides. 

He then knew that he was in pain from the realization that crept over him: Kyungsoo had lived his life never ever having anyone care about him. 

***

Kyungsoo never made it to the assembly. He was too busy puking his guts out in the boy's bathroom. Leaning on the floor and puking into the pot he wondered why he had done what he had done. 

_You would have had to drink it anyway if Baekhyun hadn't intervened. So what difference does it make?_

But still. He didn't have to. They would have made Baekhyun drink the soap water and Kyungsoo could have walked away. He wouldn't be there on that filthy bathroom floor, puking his intestines out. 

_You didn't want him to suffer like you. That's why you did it. Go on and admit it. There's no point in lying to yourself._

That's when he remembered Baekhyun’s wide eyes and the honesty in his voice as he said, “because I care.” It made something clench inside Kyungsoo and his eyes brimmed up. He had already been tearing up from all the puking but these were hot emotional tears. Tears that you can't stop. Tears that have a mind of their own. 

He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and sat down on the floor with his back to the side wall of the toilet. He didn't know what was making those tears run hot and heavy down those cheeks but he was overwhelmed by the knot of emotion in his chest.

_No one has ever said that to me. Not since Nana died. Did he mean it?_

_What does it matter? Even if he does, it's all temporary. It always is. He will leave. They always leave. No one wants you for too long. Once they know who you are, what you are, they will leave you and walk away._

_You aren't worthy of love. Of anyone's love. Or concern. You know that you were never wanted. You know that you were unwanted even before you were born. Your own parents tried to kill you. Do you think anyone else will care about you?_

Kyungsoo felt his mood plummet with his thoughts, spiraling downwards and out of control. He wanted it to stop. All of it. The thoughts and the pain. He wanted to just be done with it all. 

Would he die if he drank more soap water? Could it kill him?

_No. Not now. Not where they can find you. Not where they can find help. You need to find a place where no one will find you till you're long gone. You don't need to take chances._

That is how he ended up at the edge of the cliff again that night. With his legs hanging off and his butt as close to the edge as possible, he sat there with confidence, knowing that the tiniest nudge would push him off. 

And then all would go black. 

There are consequences for everything that you do. Kyungsoo knew that very well because his life had fewer actions and more consequences. 

That day he had to face the consequence of being late. Funnily, the thing that stopped him from jumping off that cliff that night was hunger. His stomach had rumbled and grumbled from being empty the whole day, convincing Kyungsoo that one last meal, one last good meal, would be nice before he died. It's funny how small things, like food, can stop a man from taking his life. He wondered to himself why he hadn't just jumped off that cliff. It wouldn't really matter if he was hungry or not when he was dead. Then why?

Somewhere along his walk home, he realized that it really was hunger, and maybe a little greed, that stopped him from ending it all a few minutes ago. He wanted to have ramen and kimchi fried rice and some egg rolls and some fried chicken. He also wanted some pancakes and spicy marinated grilled beef and pork skin and…. 

He fantasized about food his entire way home. He imagined what they would taste like and calculated how much it would cost to buy the ingredients and make them at home. But fried chicken was best when bought at a restaurant so he'd have to spend a little extra for that. He had quite a significant amount saved up from last week because he hadn't gotten his window fixed. He was glad that he hadn't. Now he could eat with that money. God only knew how hungry he was. 

He stopped by the fried chicken restaurant and ordered a half serving of fried chicken, salivating at the thought of how it would taste. He considered eating it in the park and then going home, but it was really late and going back home any later would assure a beating. So he decided to risk it and go home. He'd eat the chicken secretly in his room. He was probably being selfish by buying chicken only for himself and taking it home secretly but he wanted to eat chicken so badly he couldn't think straight. He was so hungry that he ended up pulling a piece out of the box and gobbling it down on the way home. He even chewed up the bones and swallowed them. 

He had always known what hunger was but he had never been so desperate for food ever before in his life. Before he entered the house he stuffed the box of chicken deep inside in his backpack and prayed to God that his mother and that monster had already gone to sleep. 

Either God didn't listen to his prayers or he was out for Kyungsoo's blood because there he was, his mother's boyfriend, sitting on the couch as if waiting for Kyungsoo to return. 

“Where were you?” His voice was menacing in the dimly lit room. 

“School and then work. I had to take an extra shift at the store because the other part-timer didn't show up.” Kyungsoo had gotten good at lying. His lies didn't always work but he tried anyway. 

“Extra shift? Did you do these shifts for free or do you get paid for them?” The boyfriend was very lucid. He usually would be drunk or asleep by this time on most days. 

“I do get paid sometimes.” Kyungsoo didn't what to say an outright yes. Saying yes meant that he'd have to give up more money to him. Money that Kyungsoo couldn't afford to spare. 

“Sometimes? So you work for free the rest of the times? Is that why you depend on us so much for money? Because you're working for free for others?” 

Kyungsoo was baffled. He depended on them for money? He had been the one working his ass off trying to pay bills that they should be paying so that their electricity wouldn't get cut off. He put food in the fridge by spending every weekend shoveling dung, plucking fruits, milking cows, cleaning out toilets, mopping up floors and working at the convenience store till he could barely stand upright. He paid for his own books and school supplies. He slept in a freezing cold room because he couldn't afford to get his broken window fixed and no one else cared enough to do it for him. He was the one who slept hungry on most days because that monster would eat like a hog and never once care if Kyungsoo had dinner or not. 

“ _You_ take money from _me_. I have never asked you to pay for anything for me. I always pay for myself on my own. So you have no right to say that _I_ depend on _you_ for money.” Kyungsoo doesn't know what got into him. He had never spoken back to him before. Maybe it was the adrenaline that was pumping through him from being so close to death. Or maybe it was the hunger, the fatigue, that was talking. Or perhaps his death wish was rearing his head up again, desperate to end it all. Either way, Kyungsoo knew he was done for as soon as he said those words. He didn't regret them though. He was glad he had finally spoken up. 

The blow came hard and fast. Kyungsoo didn't have enough time to duck and avoid the blow. Instead, he took it full force against his jaw, making his vision go dark for a couple of seconds. He swayed and lost his balance, slumping against the wall when he felt another punch in his gut. The force of it made his knees buckle and he fell to the floor, clutching his stomach. 

“You support yourself huh? You pay for yourself huh? What do you at for? Your school books? Is that why you have that much of an attitude? Anything that gives you an attitude needs to be destroyed to teach you a lesson. Give me your bag.” Saying so, he grabbed Kyungsoo's bag, trying to pull it off his shoulders and when Kyungsoo resisted he opened the zip and pulled everything out. 

“Let's see what we have here.” He picked up a couple of books and tore the pages apart. 

“No please,” Kyungsoo begged the monster to not tear his notebooks but that made the monster even more excited to rip each page into shreds until they were not salvageable anymore. 

“What about this book? Is this Chemistry? Oh, nice. Will it be more fun if I burnt them?” He pulled out his lighter from his pocket and held the flame against the book till it went up in flames. The ashes dropped at Kyungsoo's feet. Kyungsoo watched his precious notes get ripped into tatters and burnt quietly. He didn't make a sound. He was scared that if he did, then the man would go back and open his bag for more. Then he'd find the box of chicken at the bottom. 

He felt his eyes brim with hot angry tears. He was angry, he was mad, but he couldn't do anything about it. Retaliating at this moment would only cause more damage. 

For one second Kyungsoo felt ashamed that all he cared about at that moment was the chicken. But that was only proof of how deprived and hungry he was. 

“What else do you have in your bag, boy?” He picked up the bag and turned it upside down, dropping all its contents on the floor. 

Oh no. Kyungsoo didn't have any luck at all. 

“Well, well well. What do we have here? Is that a box of fried chicken? Why was it so deep inside your bag? Were you trying to sneak it into your room and feast on it alone? Are you that selfish, boy?” He knelt down and caught Kyungsoo roughly by the chin. “Answer me. Weren't you planning on sharing it with us? Haven't I managed to teach you anything? Haven't I managed to teach you how important it is to share, especially with family?” 

“Answer me, boy!” He grabbed onto Kyungsoo's hair and shook his head. “Answer me!”

“When have you ever brought home food and offered it to me?” Kyungsoo didn't know where he got his bravery from but it was going to get his ass whopped. 

“What did you say? You ungrateful son of a bitch. How dare you?” He pushed Kyungsoo's head onto the floor till his face was pressing against the ash of his burnt notebook. He rubbed it back and forth almost like he was trying to clean the floor with Kyungsoo's face. He lifted his head up by the hair and banged it against the floor one last time before letting go. 

“You better learn to keep that tongue of yours in your mouth, boy. Consider it your last warning.” He picked up the box of chicken, went back to the couch, and ate it as he watched TV. 

Kyungsoo watched him from the floor for a few minutes, hoping futilely that the monster would get full and throw the box back at Kyungsoo to finish. Maybe he would leave a couple of pieces for him. But it was pointless to hope for that, because Kyungsoo knew the truth: he wouldn't be getting any chicken that night. 

Despite being hungry and tired and just plainly exhausted from how badly his day had gone, Kyungsoo picked up all his things off the floor, swept up the torn and burnt bits of paper and the ash. He then grabbed the mop from the kitchen and mopped up the floor too. It was mindless labor and tiring himself out would mean that he could collapse into bed and just fall asleep instantly. He didn't have the strength to think anymore. He didn't even have the strength to fantasize his own death. He just wanted something to eat and some sleep. That's all. 

After washing the mop at the sink, he opened the refrigerator to look for something to eat but only found the box of kimchi and a mostly empty carton of milk in it. They were out of groceries again. The milk had expired and smelt funny but he drank it anyway, shaking the last few drops out of the carton into his mouth, hoping they would quench some of his hunger and then he went to bed. 

That night Kyungsoo didn't pray. He didn't think. He just went to sleep as soon as his face hit his cold pillow. 

He knew what he had to do. 

***

Baekhyun was worried about Kyungsoo. He had looked for him in the assembly but he wasn't there. He had wondered if he was sick. Kyungsoo had drunk a while bottle of soap and Baekhyun was scared that it would make him sick. But he didn't want to follow him and piss him off. For every step that he took towards Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo took two steps away from him. 

He didn't what to scare him off. If approaching him slowly was what it would take for Kyungsoo to accept Baekhyun and his company, then Baekhyun would do it that way. 

They had music club after school again that day so Baekhyun was excited. He could try to talk to him. Not much, just a small hi and maybe a couple of irrelevant things. He'd break the ice slowly. There was no point in trying too hard and losing whatever connection he had. 

He was so distracted during breakfast that Chanyeol had to throw cereal at his forehead to grab his attention. Everyone knew something was up but they didn't press. When Minseok asked him if he'd like to share his story the previous night, during dinner, Baekhyun had declined, asking for a little more time to get things straight and they had all graciously offered it to him. 

“Take your time,” Jongdae had said, patting Baekhyun's hand for comfort. 

He walked to Minseok battered old car with Jongin and climbed in. He would have been still lost in his dream world had it not been for one anomaly: Junmyeon climbing into the backseat with him. 

“You're riding with us, today?” He asked him, looking at him decked out in that dark black trench coat of his. A velvet black top hat completed the look. 

“Yeah. Reaper business.”

“But you usually just zap, don't you?” Baekhyun was referring to Junmyeon’s ability to teleport from one location to another in a second. Baekhyun could do it too before he was cast out. Now it was only human transport for him. Well, he could fly too, but for some reason, he hadn't tried ever since he woke up as in Jongdae's house. He just didn't feel like doing it anymore. 

“Yeah, I do. But I could spend some time with you guys this way. I don't have any other souls to pick up at this time and his timing matches perfectly with the time you guys take to reach school.” Junmyeon smiled at him and got comfortable. “So what do you guys-“ 

“Wait,” Baekhyun cut him off. “Are you picking up a soul from our school? Like a student? Or a teacher?”

“Well, he's 16 years old, so I'm guessing student, rather than a teacher.” He chuckled at that. Reapers had a weird sense of humor.

Baekhyun, Minseok and Jongin, however, didn't find it funny. Baekhyun exchanged a worried look with Jongin before deciding to pester Junmyeon again. “What's his name? How is he gonna die?”

“Well, you know that we reapers only pick up souls of atheists, sinners, criminals and those who take their own lives?" Junmyeon asked.

Baekhyun nodded. “Yeah. We pick up the souls of the religious, those who have done a lot of good in life, untimely death, and life lost in self sacrifice.”

“Since I'm the one picking up the soul of a 16 year old student, what do you think is the most likely cause of death?” Junmyeon looked between Baekhyun and Jongin, waiting for them to guess the right answer. 

Baekhyun knew what it was going to be. It was obvious. He didn't have to say it out loud to confirm it. Jongin did it for him. 

“Suicide?” He whispered as if saying the word out loud would push it to become true. 

Junmyeon nodded. 

And then there was silence; in respect for the dead, or as in this case, the would-be-dead. 

Baekhyun didn't need to ask Junmyeon to know the boy's name. He just knew. He just knew deep inside who it was going to be. And it filled him with dread. He was silent the entire ride to school and as soon as the car stopped he dashed out and into the school. 

He knew he was going to get into trouble for this; even more trouble than he already was in. But he couldn't let it happen; no matter the price. He just couldn't let it happen. He'd take the punishment after he saved the boy. He'd take the punishment without any complaint. 

But he just couldn't let him die. He couldn't let Kyungsoo die. 

He ran all around, desperately listening for Kyungsoo's thoughts and hoping to locate him. 

_I hope it's high enough. I don't want to wake up ever again. This has to be the end._

Baekhyun stopped in shock. It was the same voice from that day. And it sounded nothing like Kyungsoo's. It sounded nothing like when he thought Baekhyun was beautiful. This voice was dark and empty. 

Maybe it wasn't Kyungsoo. Maybe it was someone else. Maybe Baekhyun was mistaken. He realized how urgent the situation was and immediately ran outside, looking at the top of the building and trying to spot the person. 

Finally, he spotted the person at the top of the building as he neared the back of the school. It was Kyungsoo.

_This is the end, Kyungsoo. This is the end._

Baekhyun was confused for a second, trying to match the sounds. It clearly was Kyungsoo but it sounded so different from the other times he had heard his thoughts. What was going on?

Baekhyun should have had time to call out to Kyungsoo, to get him to stop. He should have had time to convince him that there were other options, many other options. He should have had time to tell him that death was not the only answer. 

But he didn't have time. He only had time to gasp as Kyungsoo fell off the building and plummeted down towards the unforgiving concrete. He acted on instinct. He acted without thinking, without calculating. He burst upwards in flight with a flurry of wings and feathers; a pathetic attempt at catching the boy before he reached the ground. 

It was a pathetic attempt because he failed.

One second Baekhyun was a few inches off then ground with his arms outstretched and the next second both hit the ground hard. Baekhyun heard the sickly sound of bones cracking. He didn't know whose; his or Kyungsoo's, but the blinding pain in his arm, shoulder and his wings told him that he had broken something. 

He hadn't known pain before. He did now. And it was making him lose consciousness. 

Right before everything went black, he saw Junmyeon approach the both of them and stand above Kyungsoo.

“No,” he begged with what little breath he had. “No, please, don't.”

Junmyeon seemed not to hear him and leaned down towards Kyungsoo. 

“Please,” Baekhyun begged with his last breath. And then he lost consciousness. 

**Author's Note:**

> It was very taxing to write; very emotionally taxing. I can only hope that I managed to convey all those emotions into words.
> 
> Part 2/2 coming soon. I hope you look forward to it.


End file.
